What I Learned from Writing 50k Words in Less Than a Month

If you follow my feed, then you’ve probably seen me post stuff about “new words written” and some number “of 50,000.” That was a part of my June 50k Challenge in which I tried (and successfully completed) to write 50,000 words for one of my stories within the month of June. As you can tell from the title, I wrote 50,000 words within this month with extra time to spare!

I learned a lot from doing this challenge, so I encourage you to do the same. There’s plenty of reasons why you should, but we’ll get to that in a moment when I start explaining what I learned. Firstly, I’d like to introduce people to the July 50k Challenge.

The July 50k Challenge is exactly like the June 50k Challenge except it takes place in July—which has one extra day.

• Basically, all you have to do is write 50,000 words within the month of July or the 31 days it has.
• There are no rules about what you write, so it doesn’t have to be a published story on AFF.
• I wrote for one story since it was much easier to add up word counts (all I had to was pull up spellcheck on Google Docs or click the word count on Microsoft Word), but you are not obligated to write for one story. It just makes it much easier and less confusing to write for one story.
• You don’t to post your progress day by day on your feed if you don’t want to, but I find that it helps me keep up with writing (wouldn’t want to let people know I wrote 0 words).
• I recommend keeping a tracker on a separate document or journal to track your progress!
• The point of this challenge is to try. Success doesn’t always come easily.

Please comment below if you are doing this challenge/thinking about it! I’d love to join in with you :-D

Anyways, let’s get to the good part!

Here’s what I learned. (There’s a too long; didn’t read version at the bottom!)

Outlines can save your life.

I never made an outline that I stuck with until this challenge.

Needless to say, the outline I stuck with was immensely helpful. It kept me in check throughout my writing process. Each time I found myself stuck, all I had to do was pull up my outline and read about the motivations and personalities of characters, and the next thing I knew, I wasn’t stuck anymore.

The point is, an outline is like having a ruler when you want to draw a realistic self-portrait. You can’t use it word for word to allow for flexibility. (You wouldn’t want your self portrait to be composed entirely of straight lines.) However, what you can do is let it guide you. (You want the exact ratio, and what better way is there to measure than with a ruler?)

I didn’t stick with my outline all the way through, but it was helpful to have when I began writing. I still use it for reference actually.

I used a loose format of the Snowflake Method to make my outline.

Music can make or break you.

I say this because listening to music can be detrimental or helpful. For me, it was sometimes helpful and sometimes not. For example, when I wanted to write a calm scene where a character thinks amongst themselves, it helped to write alongside a calming track of piano music. Similarly, when I was writing a scene with strong dialogue and arguing, listening to strong/angry music did not help. Surprisingly, calm music with ambient sound (without any distinguishable lyrics) helped me the most with writing—no matter what the scene was about.

I find that writing to music with lyrics can be distracting—especially if the lyrics are in a language you can understand. That being said, you can listen to K-pop or whatever it is you want to listen to, but make sure the words aren’t out there—don’t listen to something like Be Quiet by Monsta X—and make sure the music isn’t pronounced either (don’t listen to All In by Monsta X, and no tea whatsoever, but since MX’s music has a lot of dubstep based elements, it makes it hard to write a scene).

Classical, chill-hop, R&B were the genres of the music I listened to the most while writing. I didn’t listen to any ASMR, but I think that will help out too.

Spotify has some nice playlists. Here’s one with piano and here’s one with chill, lofi beats.

Don’t cheat yourself by adding in words, phrases, sentences you don’t need to increase the word count.

Not only is this detrimental, but you’ll find yourself deleting large portions of your writing during your editing process.

For example, don’t write “she mumbled quietly.” I added this emphasis on quietly because it’s completely useless. In this example, it can be inferred that mumbling is something done quietly. How can mumble something loudly? It is only a quiet action; it’s unnecessary to add quietly.

Similarly, adverbs are not always your friend.

In that last example, quietly was useless. In this example—“she watched him happily”—is it useless or is it helpful? Depending on the context clues, this may or may not be redundant or needed. If this is the only indication that “she” watches him “happily,” then this adverb is needed. However, if you had something like

• She couldn’t stop smiling; she watched him happily.

then “happily” might be redundant. Why else would be a person not be able to stop themselves from smiling? Are they not happy? The context clues give enough information—no need to add more.

• She couldn’t stop smiling as she watched him.
• She watched him happily.

Which of these have more words? Showing (describing without the use of unnecessary adverbs) instead of telling (using adverbs to cut out description) would be a great way to bolster your word count—if used correctly.

There is a difference between excessive and just right.

There are some examples here and here!

Don’t waste time trying to edit to perfection. Perfection is subjective, but time is objective.

I have to admit it: I love going back and editing my past work. Well, not really, but I do it so often, you might mistake it as love. But it’s not. I hate editing because it takes forever.

When you edit, you’re most likely looking for grammatical mistakes, plot holes, lack of dialogue, or whatever it is you think you missed. While it’s acceptable to want to have a surplus of literary greatness, what’s unacceptable is to think that you can attain literary perfection. Nothing can ever be perfect because it’s a subjective opinion. Good can get better, and the best is an illusion. There’s always going to be room for improvement.

So, don’t waste your time trying to go back and editing and editing your chapters. Move forward. Allow someone to read over what you’ve written. Chances are, they think it’s great.

You only have 24 hours to write new content. Edit, but don’t overdo it.

Utilize your resources!

This helped me so much, and I’m actually thinking of making a story in which I compile all my sources.

Anyways, there are writers online (AFF and beyond) that will help you. I know I asked my friends on Tumblr and Wattpad for help regarding scenes, semantics, and the like. Not only that, but there are so many real life, published authors who have created essays online for future authors to utilize and learn from. I can’t link everything in one blog post, so I will link two things that helped me tremendously.

Here’s a list of tips from the one and only, F. Scott Fitzgerald regarding fiction writing.

And here’s Stephen King’s list of 14 tips to keep in mind when writing.

Your excuses are lame. A broken laptop? A piece of paper and a pencil will do. The Notes app is not dead. Download Google Docs on your phone.

I found myself making too many excuses when I was writing. Or trying to. Whether it was being too tired, too busy, or whatever, there was always something. In truth, I believe there is literally nothing that separates a person from achieving what they want.

There was a time when I was angry that the WiFi in my house was down. I was so angry about it that I forgot that I don’t need WiFi to write a chapter. I didn’t even need a computer. I had the Google Docs app on my phone. I had the Notes app. I could literally write whatever I wanted, any time I wanted. What was I doing waiting for the WiFi to get fixed when I could actually accomplish something?

The point is, you can choose to wait in the line or you could wait in line…and get at least 20-50 words down. Time is everywhere as long as you look.

“I don’t have time” only means that you weren’t using your time correctly when you had it.

There was one point where I was writing on the way to a restaurant. I was stuck in a car, and it does get dizzying trying to write a chapter on your phone in a moving car, but that’s what stoplights are for. Literally, one to two minutes of time can equate to a good amount of words. Something is better than nothing.

Now, I know that some people are genuinely busy. I actually stayed up longer than I should have trying to write. And that’s okay. The point of this challenge is not to achieve 50k words. The point of this challenge is that you tried.

Talk to someone about what you’re doing!

Everything is better with a friend, and I honestly wished that I told more people about this challenge before I took it.

Also, it’s fun to discuss plots and other writing as you go!